MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM–(Marketwire – Feb. 15, 2010) – The 2009 gold production statistics indicate that South Africa has dropped to third place in the table of the world’s leading gold producers.

Once the world’s biggest producer, by quite some way, South Africa saw its gold production fall a further 5% during the course of 2009. The nation produced a total of 222 tonnes during the year. South Africa remains the biggest producing nation on the African continent, however, by a massive margin. Ghana, the second biggest gold producer from the continent, produced just 80 tonnes.

However, South Africa now lags behind both China and Australia on the global gold production scale. While Australia produced just marginally more of the precious metal, China produced a huge 330 tonnes during 2009, positioning them comfortably at the top of the table.

While demand for gold remains high, with both new and experienced investors alike rushing to buy gold in the face of an inconsistent dollar, the mining industry faces tough competition from scrap recycling.

Gold does remain an attractive investment, however, with a more diverse demographic taking advantage of online gold trading websites such as Gold Made Simple, to purchase the precious metal. The increasing popularity of online gold trading means the process is now less elitist and with the commodity receiving more press attention than ever before, its popularity with investors looks set to continue to rise.

According to a new World Bank Group survey the capacity of countries to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets is improving around the world, but much more progress is needed to spur faster economic growth and help firms benefit from trade recovery.

Germany is the top performer among the 155 economies ranked in the Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI), which are included in the report Connecting to Compete 2010: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy. Eritrea is ranked 154 followed by Somalia ranked 155 (Table A). The study is based on the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.

According to the LPI, high income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, with most of them occupying important places in global and regional supply chains. By contrast, the ten lowest performing countries are almost all from the low and lower income groups.

Although the study shows a substantial “logistics gap” between rich countries and most developing countries, it finds positive trends in some areas essential to logistics performance and trade. Some of them include the modernization of customs, use of information technology, and development of private logistics services.

The report, headed by World Bank Group economists Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra, notes that among developing economies logistics performance transcends the level of per capita income: Many countries perform better than what their income level would suggest. The ten most significant over-performers include China (27), India (47), Uganda (66), Vietnam (53), Thailand (35), the Philippines (44), and South Africa (28).

Likewise, the countries with significant improvement in performance between the two surveys (the 2007 and 2010 LPI) are often those which implemented comprehensive logistics and trade facilitation reforms earlier, such as Colombia, Brazil, and Tunisia.

In terms of how developing countries are doing per region, South Africa (28) is the top performer from Africa; China (27) from East Asia; Poland (30) from Central and Eastern Europe; Brazil (41) from Latin America; Lebanon (33) from the Middle East; and India (47) from South Asia.

According to the study, logistics performance is heavily influenced by the quality of public sector institutions and the effective coordination of border clearance processes among all border management agencies. In this area, customs performs better than many other agencies, pointing to the need for border management reforms. In low performing countries, on average, half of the containers are physically inspected and one container out of seven at least twice.

Other areas for improvement include better transport policies, increasing competition in trade-related services such as trucking, freight forwarding and railways; and better trade-related infrastructure. For many low-income countries the most binding constraints are often in logistics services and international transit systems. Given they perform better on many other indicators, improving trade infrastructure is often reported to be a priority for middle-income countries.

The World Bank Group has a number of projects designed to improve trade logistics in developing countries. The US$250 million East Africa Trade and Transport Facilitation Project improved the corridor infrastructure and upgraded the main border crossing between Uganda and Kenya at Malaba, reducing border crossing times from three days to three hours. In Tunisia, a US$250 million operation is improving competitiveness by reducing trade costs and streamlining border clearance procedures. And in Afghanistan, the Bank is providing funding for a US$31.2 million project to modernize and computerize four major border crossings, increasing customs revenues from US$50 million when the project started in 2004 to over US$399 million in 2008.

In addition, the Bank is working with IBM, Microsoft and the Global Express Association as part of a public-private partnership on “Aid for Trade Facilitation.” The objective is to develop pilot projects in developing countries that apply innovative IT solutions to streamline border procedures.

Global Trade Logistics Ranking (Table A)